I'd be curious to know too. Last year hubby and I didn't leave the resort but this time around we're thinking of maybe actually doing something that doesn't involve either a drink or a beach chair... 4 more days!

We went last September from CSA. It's a bit of a ways off the resort, so it usually works best when paired with one or two other stops in the area.

Our trip was paired with the "Black River Safari" and the YS Falls; Appleton was the last. Not sure that any one of the three would be worthwhile by themselves, but collectively it made for a great day. For me, the highlight was buying a bunch of rum at the Appleton gift shop, and watching my wife's jaw drop when she saw the cash register ring up about $10,000!

(Of course, that's Jamaican dollars, though everything's run through the bank card machines as US dollars.)

It is about two hours there and two hours back, and gets you into some of the mountainous areas of Jamaica.

We went from CSA, which is just down the street from CN. It was very much worth it but I wouldn't do the tour by itself. We booked the falls tour and black river tour with it. The factory is a ways away from the resort so doing just that is a waste. Doing all three in one day was great. For sure recommend it. You tour the factory last out of all three tours. You walk around and see how it was done a long time ago and see how it is done now. Then get to taste several different kinds of rum at the end and shop in their gift shop.

The Appleton Estate is about 1-1/2 to 2 hours from Negril. It can easily be wrapped up with a tour of YSFalls for a comfortable daytrip.

We went on the rum tour about 6 or 7 years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The tour provides a peak at some of the darker history of Jamaica (Appleton has been making fine rums since the mid-18th century), and I'm a bit of a history geek. I'm also a process geek, and my job involves control of industrial processes (among them ethanol production), and the tour involves the obligatory view of how it was done in the old days.

Finally, after a visit to the aging warehouse (oh, how I remember that aroma!), we were escorted to the tasting room. Hmmmm! Careful, though... its the real stuff!

This was a private ride (just my wife and I), we left the resort at about 9am, visited Peter Tosh's memorial, stopped at a roadside stand for breakfast, went to YSFalls, took in the Estate, and stopped for a view of at the Bamboo Highway; and returned to the resort by dinner. At the time, this tour cost us about $200.